Newgate Street

“ The prisoners in Newgate are at liberty to communicate with one another; they are not compelled to work.
We pass through Newgate-street and turn to the right into Paternoster-row, a narrow street, from times immemorial the manufactory of learning, where the publishing trade is carried on in dingy houses, and where it runs its anarchical career without the benefit of a censor. ”

“ But he did not like the risk of entering a room by the fireplace, and the chances of detection it offered.
He traversed vainly all the roofs in Newgate Street, running a great risk of discovery as he passed by a lot of workmen at Tyler’s manufactory in Warwick Square, which had formerly been the College of Physicians. As his coat was an incumbrance, he left it on the top of the third house in Newgate Street, and thus in shirt-sleeves, barefoot and bareheaded, he worked along to the roofs in Warwick Lane. Here he came upon a woman on the leads hanging out clothes to dry. ”

“ At the upper end, on the left hand—that is, adjoining the wall in Newgate-street—is a cistern of water, and at the bottom a double grating (of which the gate itself forms a part) similar to that before described. Through these grates the prisoners are allowed to see their friends; a turnkey always remaining in the vacant space between, during the whole interview. Immediately on the right as you enter, is a building containing the press-room, day-room, and cells; the yard is on every side surrounded by lofty walls guarded by chevaux de frise ”

“ The intermediate space is divided into several paved yards, in which the prisoners take such air and exercise as can be had in such a place. These yards, with the exception of that in which prisoners under sentence of death are confined (of which we shall presently give a more detailed description) , run parallel with Newgate-street, and consequently from the Old Bailey, as it were, to Newgate-market. The women’s side is in the right wing of the prison nearest the Sessions-house. ”

“ He was committed to Newgate under the lord mayor's warrant on 6 Jan. 1663, being the first of the nonconformists who got into trouble for disobeying the Uniformity Act. Newgate Street was blocked by the coaches of his visitors. ‘A certain popish lady’ (apparently the king's mistress) , detained on her way through the city by the throng, represented to the king the disturbed state of popular feeling. Calamy was set free by the king's express order, but it was stated that the act had not provided for his longer restraint. ”

“ Newgate serves to London the purpose of a reception prison for offenders awaiting trial and for those condemned to death, and the executions of the great city are performed within its walls. The Old Bailey Court, which is an adjunct to it, is practically a part of the mountain of masonry which sends its bleak shadow over Newgate street and the Old Bailey. It is separated from it only by a yard, across which prisoners are led to be tried. ”

“ All London was astir, and had put on holiday attire, while I, now a poor weed drifting to rot on Lethe's wharf, was on my way to Newgate.
Newgate! Then it had come to this! The Primrose Way wherein I had walked and lived delicately at the expense of honor, ended here!
"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," was written by one Paul. The wisdom of many was here and condensed in the wit of one, and one with the shrewdest insight into things and a practical knowledge of human history. ”

“ On the female side matters were much worse; “the apartments set apart for them, being built to accommodate 60 persons, now contain about 120.” Returns laid before the House of Commons showed that 6439 persons had been committed to Newgate in the three years between 1813 and 1816, and this number did not include the debtors, a numerous class, who were still committed to Newgate pending the completion of the White Cross Street prison. ”

“ After the fire of London, which afforded an opportunity of rendering the new streets more commodious than the old ones had been, it was ordered by act of parliament that Newgate market should be removed from the street, and a square was formed on the south side for that purpose, surrounded by decent houses. This square is 194 feet long from east to west, and 148 feet broad from north to south. In the middle is a market house, under which are vaults or cellars, and the upper part of the building is employed as a kind of warehouse for the fruiterers, and the keepers of green stalls by night. ”

“ I maintain you have no right to make the inhabitants of those streets to which there is no idea of extending the wood paving, pay for the ease and comfort, as it is called, of persons residing in the larger thoroughfares, such as Newgate Street and Cheapside. ”

“ Few will recognise the old “Tyburn Road” in modern Oxford Street, with its huge drapery and furniture emporiums, and the attractions which bring so large a part of the populace to shop there. A century and a half ago this was a country road, along which the two-wheeled, springless carts passed from Newgate with their escorts of sheriffs, officers, and marshalmen conveying condemned men to execution. ”

“ Adopting the same line of route, the Rambler may pass the south front of the Metropolitan Meat Market, turning to the left by St. Bartholomew’s Hospital into Giltspur Street, which leads to Newgate Street, and faces on the opposite corner of Old Bailey Newgate Prison. In “Great Expectations,” Pip describes his visit to the interior, at the invitation and in the company of Mr. Wemmick:—
p. ”

“ Every felon at his coming in pays 14s. 10d. for fees and garnish money only, 1s. 6d. for coals, and 1s. to be spent amongst the prisoners of the ward.”
III. The Common Side for Debtors comprised four apartments, all situate towards Newgate Street, in other words, facing north. The ground-floor apartment was named the “Stone Hall” (9) ; its dimensions are not given, but it owned a cistern for water, and on the north side a chimney, “in which no fires are made except at Christmas, when there is a quantity of beef boiled there to be given to the felons.” ”

“ We remain, however, in our usual state of conscious ignorance, although there is a good deal of talking and walking about a house in Wimpole Street—which, between ourselves, I am not very anxious to live in, on account of the gloominesses of that street, and of that part of the street, whose walls look so much like Newgate's turned inside out. ”

“ One wild fierce desire was uppermost with all, one thought possessed their minds to the exclusion of all others—to destroy the hateful prison-house and raze it to the ground.
On arriving at the Old Bailey in front of the stone façade, as grim and solid as that of any fortress, the mob halted and demanded the gaoler, Mr. Akerman, who appeared at a window, some say on the roof, of his house, which forms the centre of the line of buildings facing Newgate street. When he appeared the mob called on him to release their confederates and surrender the place unconditionally. Mr. ”

“ Having accomplished this risky service, he returned to the leads, made fast his blanket, slid down it, entered the turner's house by a garret window, and eventually, after some delay and no little danger of detection, got away down into the street.
Mr. Austin, the Newgate turnkey, who was specially in charge of Sheppard, and who, on unbolting the castle strong room next morning, found that his prisoner was gone, was amazed beyond measure. The whole of the prison warders ran up, and at sight of the cart-loads of rubbish and débris "stood like men deprived of their senses." ”

“ D. away from the Great Fire with a promise of prison cells and relics of Newgate, [153] and I must admit to a sensation myself when face to face with the door of the condemned cell of Newgate Prison. This particular corner of the Museum makes a bid for popularity with those with a taste for horrors. The prison cells from Neptune Street, in which debtors were confined for indefinite periods for small debts, are an example of old London's cruelty to those of its unfortunate citizens who couldn't pay their way. ”

“ Hence in the one long room they occupied and used for all purposes, eating, drinking, and sleeping, the elder and more vitiated boys were still able to exercise a baneful influence over the young and innocent. More space became available by the removal of the debtors to Whitecross Street, and then the boys were lodged according to categories in four different rooms. Mr. Cotton believed that the boys benefited morally from the instruction and care they received. This juvenile school was one bright spot in the prevailing darkness of Newgate at that particular time. ”

“ The well-known Cato Street conspiracy, which grew out of disturbed social conditions after the last French war, amidst general distress, and when the people were beginning to agitate for a larger share of political power, was among the earliest, and to some extent the most desperate, of these. Its ringleaders, Thistlewood and the rest, were after capture honoured by committal as State prisoners to the Tower, but they came one and all to Newgate for trial at the Old Bailey, and remained there after conviction till they were hanged. ”

“ Some five hundred in all were arrested, but as only three of these were lodged in Newgate, I shall not recur to them in my narrative.
The Cato Street conspiracy would have been simply ridiculous but for the recklessness of the desperadoes who planned it. That some thirty or more needy{279} men should hope to revolutionize England is a sufficient proof of the absurdity of their attempt. But they proceeded in all seriousness, and would have shrunk from no outrage or atrocity in furtherance of their foolhardy enterprise. ”

“ It is to be feared that long after the opening of White Cross Street prison, Newgate continued to be a reproach to those responsible for its management.
I pass now to the criminal side of Newgate, which consisted of the six quarters or yards already enumerated and described. [39] The inmates of this part, as distinguished from the debtors, were comprised in four classes:— (1) those awaiting trial; (2) persons under sentence of imprisonment for a fixed period, or until they shall have paid certain fines ”

“ He was arraigned at the Old Bailey, and the case fully proved. His sentence was seven years’ transportation.
The gravest crimes continued at intervals to inspire the town with horror, and concentrate public attention upon the gaol of Newgate, and the murderers immured within its walls. Courvoisier’s case made a great stir. There was unusual atrocity in this murder of an aged, infirm gentleman, a scion of the ducal house of Bedford, by his confidential valet and personal attendant. Lord William Russell lived alone in Norfolk Street, Park Lane. He was a widower, and seventy-three years of age. ”

“ On Wednesday I walked with Dr. Scott, to look at Newgate, and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the Sessions House at the Old Bailey. There was not, I believe, a hundred; but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without sentinels, and without trepidation, as men lawfully employed in full day. Such is the cowardice of a commercial place!
“On Wednesday they broke open the Fleet Prison, the King’s Bench and Marshalsea Prisons, Wood-street Compter, and Clerkenwell Bridewell. ”

“ At no period could thieves in London or elsewhere have prospered had they been unable to dispose of their ill-gotten goods. The trade of fence, or receiver, therefore, is very nearly as old as the crimes which it so obviously fostered. [115] One of the most notorious, and for a time most successful practitioners in this illicit trade, passed through Newgate in 1831. The name of Ikey Solomons was long remembered by thief and thief-taker. He began as an itinerant street vendor at eight, at ten he passed bad money, at fourteen he was a pickpocket and a “duffer,” or a seller of sham goods. ”

“ I read in "Luttrell," under date February, 1698, "Captain Dancy of the Guards killed a bailiff in Exeter Street, and is committed to Newgate." Again, in 1705, "Captain Carlton, formerly a justice of the peace for Middlesex, is committed to Newgate for running a marshal's man through the body who endeavoured to arrest him on the parade by the Horse Guards in St. James's Park, of which wound it is thought the man will die." I can find no mention of the fate which overtook these murderers; but the "Calendars" contain a detailed account of another murder of much the same kind ”

“ This gradually was forced upon the consciousness of the Corporation, and about 1812 application was made to Parliament for funds to build a new debtors’ prison. Authority was given to raise money on the Orphans’ Fund to the extent of £90,000. A site was purchased between Red Lion and White Cross streets, and a new prison planned, which would accommodate the inmates of Newgate and of the three compters, Ludgate, Giltspur Street, and the Poultry, or about four hundred and seventy-six in all. ”

“ The inside of the gate is also adorned with a range of pilasters, with their entablatures, and in three niches are the figures of Justice, Mercy and Truth.
The author of The Review observes,
“That Newgate considered as a prison, is a structure of more cost and beauty than was necessary, because the sumptuousness of the outside but aggravates the misery of the wretches within: but as a gate to such a city as London, it might have received considerable additions both of design and execution, and abundantly answered the cost in the reputation of building. ”

“ From every avenue this{184} human crowd rushed in; up narrow courts, and the wide openings of the streets, they came in dusky groups, that passed through light and shadow as they crossed over where the glare of the gas-lamps fell—then merged into the dark mass of human forms on which the gloomy shadow of Newgate settled down. ”